


Frazzled

by Multifandom_damnation



Series: Brothers, Remember? [5]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Big Brothers, Brother-Sister Relationships, Cassandra de Rolo Needs a Hug, Dissociation, Dubious Morality, Family Dynamics, Family Issues, Flashbacks, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Panic Attacks, Self-Hatred, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 11:51:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17724656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: He was resting in the palace gardens when Cassandra came out to fetch him, one hand holding her skirts hiked up around her waist and the other on her head in an effort to keep her bun tied to the top of her head. “Vax, please come quickly. I believe something is wrong with Percival.”





	Frazzled

**Author's Note:**

> There needs to be more fics with the de Rolo siblings and more Percy&Vax so i killed two birds with one stone.

In all the time they’ve known each other, Vax had seen Percy flustered and shaky in many circumstances. Mostly it was with his sister as Vex winked at him and used her silver tongue to get her way. Sometimes it was with Cassandra who never failed to call him out on his bullshit and put him on the spot when she questioned his moralities. Rarely, it was on the battlefield when nothing was going their way and all their plans went to shit ages ago and they are all on the verge of dying a gruesome death.

But never has he seen Percival more frazzled as when he spoke about Doctor Anna Ripley.

He was resting in the palace gardens when Cassandra came out to fetch him, one hand holding her skirts hiked up around her waist and the other on her head in an effort to keep her bun tied to the top of her head. “Vax, please come quickly. I believe something is wrong with Percival.”

Vax was up and running before she had finished speaking and she quickly jogged to keep up with him. “What’s happened? Where is he?”

“He’s in his quarters.” She panted as she struggled to match his stride. With an angry growl of frustration, she dropped her skirts and bent over to unclasp her shoes and kick them off onto the grass before she picked the many frills back up again and followed. “We were just having a conversation about our lives before it all went to shit and the topic of Doctor Ripley came up and before I knew it he had pushed me out of the room and locked the door behind me.”

“And you’re sure that something is wrong?” Vax asked, dodging around the scarce shrubs and flowerbeds that had begun to sprout now that the Briarwood's dark influence had been purged from the land. “Maybe he just wanted his privacy?” Despite his attempts to reassure himself, his stride never faltered.

Cassandra shook her head. “You didn’t see his face, Vax. It was a pain I have never seen- and believe me, we are both awfully accustomed to sharing pain with each other.”

When they reached the door to Percy’s old bedroom, Vax was unsurprised to see that the door was still locked and if he listened close enough he could hear the shuffling of Percy’s anxious feet within. “Percival? Can I come in?” he called but there was no answer.

Biting his lip, Vax dropped to his knees and pulled out his tools and swore when he realized he had leant them to his sister the past day.  Before he could comment on it, however, Cassandra shoved her own set of lock picks into Vax’s hand. “Don’t tell Percy,” she said. “he’d be horrified to learn what I’ve been up to when he’s not around.”

Laughing under his breath, Vax gratefully took the set form her and slid them into the lock, pleased that they worked as effortlessly and were as well kept as his own, and the latch unlocked with a soft _click_. Vax stood and handed the lock picks back to Cassandra, who took them and hid them back in place under her robes and Vax winked at her in his best impression of Vex. “Maybe you should wait here for now while I go talk to him. I don’t know… what he’s like and at the moment I know more about Anna Ripley then you do.”

Cassandra snorted and pointed at the door. “You don’t think I know that? I would have been completely capable to open that lock myself, but I felt that it would be better if you were the one to speak to him. I have noticed that you, and your band of friends but mostly you, have helped Percy open up a little more.” She nodded at the still closed door. “Well? In you go. He’s probably pulled all his hair out by now and if he has I demand that you draw me a picture so I can frame it and put it in the halls.”

Rolling his eyes, Vax opened the door and closed it quietly behind him, waiting until the latch slid closed. He turned and caught his breath.

Percy was facing away from Vax with his hands knotted in his hair, a look of pure panic and horror wrote across his face. He was pacing a hole in the ground and he muttered worrisome things under his breath. “Freddy, hey, stop that.” Vax darted forward and gripped Percy’s hands before they could rip out any more of his hair. “What’s wrong?”

“I should have killed her,” he hissed, his eyes not really seeing Vax but they were full of fire all the same. “I should have made her suffer and let her rot in the palace dungeon. I never should have let her leave these halls alive.”

“Whoa, hey, hold up,” Vax dug his fingers deeper into Percy’s arms but the other man didn’t seem to feel it at all, his eyes wide and unseeing towards some horrid thing in his mind’s eye but from where Vax gripped him he could feel the tremors that wracked through Percy’s body. “Are you talking about Ripley? I thought we already went over this.”

“I should have spilt her blood across the castle steps.” Percy continued and despite the panic and the fear on his face, he still managed to pull away from Vax’s vice-like grip and twisted so Vax couldn’t see how he hunched in on himself and kept his arms tucked close to stop them from shaking. “She never deserved to survive. I should have left her where the Briarwoods had locked her up. We never should have let her out.”

Biting his lip, Vax reached over and shoved Percy onto the bed and the human fell without too much of a fight. “Listen, Freddy, that was a long time ago and you know that there isn’t anything you can do now. She could already be dead; we haven’t heard from her since Victor told us she purchased some of his blackpowder. She could have easily blown herself up if she wasn’t careful. Don’t beat yourself up about something that happened in the past.”

Vax didn’t want to comment of the hypocrisy of the statement and hoped that Percy wouldn’t either, but instead the noble turned and fixed Vax with a glare that was as cold as the icy mountain peaks that surrounded his home. “How many people has she hurt, Vax? How many lives are lost because of an error on my account? How many of my machines has she sold to terrible people to spread pain and terror and death like a metal plague all across Exandria? And no matter what you say, it would have been my fault.”

“Maybe that’s true, Percival, but either way it’s something that was totally out of your control.” Vax tried to speak calmly and evenly in an attempt to help relax his friend but the panic and self-hatred never left his eyes and there was something dark hidden just beneath the surface. Vax wasn’t sure it was something that can be so easily removed. “I know you blame yourself for this Freddy but you had no control on what she would do. Her choice was her own, there was no way you could have influenced them.”

“I am the only thing that drove her building her own model.” Percy seethed and he grit his teeth together so hard that Vax was worried that they might begin to crack. “If I had been more careful, if I didn’t flaunt my designs so willingly out in the open then maybe she never would have seen it in person until I blew her fucking head off her shoulders with it.”

“That is no way to live, Percival,” Vax sighed “If you fear to show your very intelligence to the world then you will become a shut-in- you won’t leave this castle without fear that copy-cat artists will make their own version of the things born from your twisted intellect.”

“If that’s what I need to do, then so be it.” Percy’s eyes were wide and searching and Vax moved swiftly to join his friend on the bed. His voice trembled with fear when he spoke. “Anna Ripley was a vile woman who never deserved to see the light of day ever again. I should have fucking killed her when I had the chance instead of showing her the mercy she never deserved.”

Vax does his best not to growl in frustration at his obviously frazzled friend but Percy was not making it easy for Vax to be calm at the moment- they should have called Pike or Keyleth or hell, even Vex but in hindsight Vax knew why he was called. The others wouldn’t understand and would try their best to reason with Percy that what he did was right and that he chose the just decision but Vax knew exactly where Percy was coming from. “Look, I’m not saying it wouldn’t have caused us the trouble to have killed her right then and there but there is some good within you, Percival, of that I am sure and I know that there is somewhere in your heart that didn’t want her killed right away. That maybe doesn’t want her killed at all because I know that you are capable of forgiveness just as I am.”

The laugh that clawed its way from Percy’s chest was bitter and without any humour. “Oh, a week filled with torture can do that to a man,” Vax hadn’t noticed it before but now Percy’s hand had trailed down to his hip where he was absently tracing over of Ripley’s long, calligraphy signature carved into his skin with trembling fingers. “And you’re right- I was perfectly happy to let her live because I needed her to take me to my sister and I knew the Briarwoods were the more pressing matter but fuck it would have been so easy to put a bullet through her skull and be done with her.”

“It would have been easy but it wouldn’t have been right,” Vax pressed and even he could hear the desperation making its way into his voice. He wished that he could block it out and replace it with any other emotion but fuck he had never been good at the whole reassuring thing and Percy is not Vex or Keyleth or Scanlan or Grog or Pike- he was something completely different and someone who had more darkness within him that Vax could ever explore.

Percy fixed him with a stare and his words were without emotion. “And when have I ever cared about doing the right thing?”

Vax exhaled sharply through his nose because he knew how right Percy was. “Regardless, deep down you know that killing people just for fun isn’t going to get us anywhere fast unless you want to lose the trust of all of us which will undoubtedly happen as soon as we see you shift.”

“Maybe that’s why I feel so strongly about her,” Percy said and Vax had the strange feeling that Percy wasn’t talking to him anymore. “Because we are both similar in different ways. Both cruel. Both calculating. Both have intellect so diabolical that we bring horrible experiences into the world. Both deserve to die.”

“Alright, that’s enough,” Vax shoved Percy against the headboard and Percy blinked back up to him with confused eyes and for a moment it felt to Vax like the clouds within them were parting. “Don’t beat yourself up about this thing. You don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve it. Your fucking _sister_ doesn’t deserve it, the one who ran across the castle to find me and is standing outside your door right so she can make sure her big brother is alright. I don’t know much about how your family works, Percy, but I would do anything in the world for my little sister. You kind of had a breakdown there for a moment and you really scared her, not on purpose, but it frightened her enough for her to run barefoot across the palace grounds. So pull yourself together, get those disgusting thoughts out of your head and go prove to her that you’ll live to see another day.”

Percy seemed to jumpstart a little and his eyes widened as they turned towards the door. “Oh yes- yes Cassandra. Oh my, oh no, how could I be so fucking stupid- Cass?” He called her name and a muffled response could be heard through the wood. “Don’t be a fool- you can come in. I know that if Vax wasn’t here you would have already, you terrible person.”

Slowly, the door began to open and Vax caught sight of colourful skirts hidden just behind the wall. “Are you sure I can come in? Are you… are you feeling much better? I can come back later if you’d like to rest.”

“No, no, come in. I’m sorry for my… episode. I honestly can’t remember the last time I had one.” He winced as Cassandra entered the room, carefully concealed worry on her face. “I also have to come clean- I can’t remember a thing we were talking about before you ran off.”

Cassandra smiled and sat on the bed as Vax stood and they both exchanged a nod at the obvious change of caretaker. “I can’t either really. Something about how I found some of our old belongings. The little toys you made for us and some of Julius’s paintings and Vespers fanciest knitting attempts. Maybe the Briarwoods packed them away and hid them out of sight but I found them in boxes.” She lied and Vax looked worriedly at Percy to see if he’d caught on.

“Oh, well that certainly is a wonderful find,” Percy beamed and Vax was startled by how drastically his demeanour had changed and how quickly his previous breakdown was forgotten. It would have been startling if it wasn’t for how good a liar Vax knew Percy to be and how sometimes he became a bit forgetful when his mind clouded over with fear and unwanted flashbacks. Besides- he was probably trying to put on a brave face for his little sister. “You have to show me them- it would be nice to have memories of them all again. Did you find any of Oliver’s flowers? The pressed ones he hid in his favourite books?”

“I did. I’ll go fetch them-” Cassandra began but before she could finish Vax placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Vax?”

“I’ll go and get them for you,” He said and Cassandra smiled up at him in gratitude. “I bring them by with one of the boxes so you can go through it together but then I really need to go find Vex’halia before she corrupts my darling girlfriend and teaches her how to do terrible things.” He winked at the two of them as he made his way to the door. Half out of the room, Vax turned back and met Percy’s eyes. “And Freddy, we’ll talk about all of this later, alright? Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

Percy gave a single nod and Vax was pleased to see some of the pride return to Percy’s eyes. “Of course, Vax. Thank you for being here… during my moment of weakness.”

Instead of answering, Vax saluted and left the room and the two remaining siblings within. Maybe Percy was a little frantic at times and maybe he let his memories and fears get the better of him on occasion and maybe sometimes Vax wonders how he managed to associate himself with a manic genius who built dangerous things and killed without remorse on many occasions and was a self-appointed madman, but either way Vax was going to be there for his friend whenever he was needed and he would be eagerly awaiting that other talk about his demons, both past and present and which absolutely refused to be ignored anymore.


End file.
